Enjolras and Cosette: a love story
by caudelac
Summary: Marius loses his lady love, ostensibly to Enjolras. Don't worry. It's not what you think. In progress.
1. The long roll is silent

Later, most everyone agreed that the main of it had been Pontmercy's fault, although perhaps they all ought to take some responsibility. Marius, on the other hand, maintained that none of this would have happened if not for Courfeyrac.  
  
  
"Enjolras never would have noticed her," He snapped staunchly, "If you hadn't insisted that I go with you that morning to fetch him. I was perfectly happy where I was."  
  
"Mooning like a calf! And if you'd been able to give it up for even a simple stroll over to Enjolras's flat..."  
  
  
"Now now," Interjected Prouvaire with a sigh, "Lovers are not hardly nor wholly responsible for their actions. An' they were, would we be here, now, upon these sweaty stones?"  
  
  
At which a fine discourse erupted in the still and fog, over love and the self-control of lovers, and the lengths to which one will go for love, after about ten minutes of which Cosette shushed them all sternly.   
  
"Listen." She ordered. Around forty-two pairs of ears pivoted on craned necks to obey, and frove in the silence. Niether the long roll nor the toscin of st. Mery could be heard through the thicket of fog.   
  
  
Enjolras, meditating nearby, his rifle leaning against his leg, clutched it hard, looking up sharply at Cosette. She met his ice blue gaze with cool-blue steadfastness, and nodded.   
  
  
"We wait." Said Enjolras, and lay the rifle across his knees. Cosette sat at his feet, leaning wearily against her own rifle, and his knee. He patted her hair chastely, and she smiled at him in tired, fraternal gratitude.  
  
  
Some feet away, Marius agonised, trying to supress a broiling jealousy that he knew to be-- at least mostly-- misplaced. Yet he couldn't supress wistful, heartbreaking rememberances of a day, not so long ago, when no thing had been more dear to Cosette than himself, and no ideal more far-reaching and glorious than that of their eventual marriage.   
  
  
But that had been before she'd met Enjolras, and, through him, the Republic. 


	2. All the clouds in heaven and all the sta...

It had been a beautiful day, near the centre of May. Marius hated it. He longed for the evening, and with it, shadows, a gap in the gate, and the face of his beloved. All day long he dreamed, hovering between the euphoria of having, however distantly, and the despair of not having, right here, until another face intruded upon his reverie. This face did not belong at all to Marius' beloved, though he tried not to hold that against it.  
  
  
"Ho Marius! Where in heaven are you?"  
  
  
Nor did the voice sound anything like his beloved's. Marius coalesced enough to identify Courfeyrac, before he managed to confirm that the melodramatic and lush backdrop in which he'd set himself like a figurine was, in fact, the Jardin du Luxembourg. He appraised Courfeyrac of this, and Courfeyrac rapped him on the head-- albeit gently-- with his walking-stick.  
  
  
"I can see your body well enough, my friend, it's your mind that's somewhere in the stars. Come down to earth with me! Or rather, come with me to see Enjolras, which is hardly the same thing, as I expect to find him in only a slightly better condition."   
  
  
Marius protested mildly, only to protest avidly once Courfeyrac got ahold of his lapels and hauled him to his feet. He continued to protest as Courfeyrac steered him firmly out of the garden by the arm. Marius felt vaguely like an Eveless Adam, driven by a hardly pristine archangel from the faded remnants of Eden.   
  
  
"You are a cruel, true friend, Courfeyrac," Muttered Marius, his tone facetious and gloomy, as Courfeyrac marched him through the boulevards, "Not to mention a brute."  
  
  
"Cheer up, Pontmercy." Chirped Courfeyrac brightly, "Mooning does no one any favors, yourself least of all. Hence-- to Enjolras's flat. I'll bet you a Napoleon (coin or conqueror, though I'll take the coin, thanks) that he's not had anything to eat yet. That's not just unhealthy, its unpatriotic!"  
  
  
Marius said nothing. He hadn't been able to eat a crumb for two days. He merely hunched his shoulders and let his friend's sunny disposition try its best to penetrate to the frozen depths of his soul.   
  
  
Finally, Courfeyrac's burbling brought Marius up a narrow, rickety flight of stairs to a sorry garret. He sauntered in without knocking, singing "Bonjour Enjolras!" to the vague air or the Marseilles.   
  
  
"Hello Courfeyrac." Enjolras didn't look very well at all, Marius had to admit. Or maybe it was merely the light in this small, cold hole, eeking in through a painfully clean, round window, no bigger than a dinner plate, but he did look frightfully more pale than usual. And the little attic all the more... sparse. Molten stubs of guttered candles lain one atop the other occupied a corner of a small wooden desk, and the rest was books and papers. Courfeyrac claimed a spot on a rather large trunk, the only furnishing save the bed, and Enjolras lay stretched out on that like a faintly bemused corpse. He raised his eyebrows at Marius, who lingered yet in the doorway with an embarrassedly pained look on his face.   
  
  
"Well, Marius! Good to see you, though you look like hell. We could have used you some nights ago."  
  
  
Somewhat shocked and at a loss by this greeting, Marius turned to Courfeyrac for guidance. That worthy stretched out his hands, staring at them with something that seemed like a painfully wry brand of mirth. "Well, we were making the rounds, you know, to the other bands, and fell, ah, somewhat short on personnel."  
  
  
"We had no one for the Barrière du Main." Said Enjolras.  
  
  
"Well, we sent Grantaire." Courfeyrac appended, smiling a little.  
  
  
"A weed can't do the job of an oak. We had no one for the Barrière du Main." Enjolras leaned up on his shoulder, frowning at Marius. Marius tried not to recoil, as that would probably send him crashing through the flimsy little door.   
  
  
"I'm sorry." he muttered, but Enjolras just waved his hand.   
  
  
"It's all right. I see through eyes that have gotten too little sleep. We watch, we are ever wakeful, we see much that those who rest a full man's share do not. I wont blame you for gathering your strength. Paris sleeps, so may Marius."  
  
  
"Marius dreams!" Exclaimed Courfeyrac. "Don't berate him Enjolras, his head is in the clouds and his feet are in the stars. He's ill with passion, gooey with love, sick with the thought of a woman, and that is all it is-- no more or less-- only a love affair!"  
  
  
This was too much for Marius. He staggered forward, eyes aflame, lips slightly parted and moaned like a fallen man who has been kicked in the street.  
  
  
"only a love affair? No more or less? Asleep, am I? You wrong-- not me, for I am as nothing-- but you wrong she who has saved me, you insult her gentleness, mock her beauty and make mean the greatness of her spirit! Don't ape me Courfeyrac, though I should have expected no quarter, no sympathy from you. You've bedded so many women that love is lost on you, and for your part, Enjolras, you love none. Neither of you know anything about it." And he sat on the chair in front of Enjolras's desk, scowling furiously at them both and the cruelty of the daylight.  
  
  
"You are wrong, Marius." Courfeyrac said softly, "I love often, and every bit as madly." But Enjolras spoke, and his words were lost.  
  
  
"Love of a woman is not greater than love for your mother." he said.  
  
  
"Is not your mother a woman?" retorted Marius. "Children leave their mothers, and find wives."   
  
  
Enjolras blinked at having his metaphor turned back on him, but remained otherwise undaunted,  
  
  
"Your mother will be there, when your wife leaves you. Marius, I hadn't realised that it is that serious. Wife?" He sat up completely, his eyes boring blue holes into the alarmed law student. "How can you possibly consider bringing children into a world where they won't be free? What place has love in irons? A mistress brings passion to a head-- I do pay attention somewhat to the exploits of our comrades-- but a wife ties one to conservatism. A family, save in a few, noble examples, makes a man afraid of change, of a weakness in stable things. We know that the apparent stability is an illusion brought on by complacency. What brings on this madness?"  
  
  
Marius turned three different colors, all very warm, and spluttered, "You know nothing about it! There is no freedom, no people, no republic without Cosette by my side."  
  
  
It was the first time he had uttered her name aloud to a living soul, and his apoplexy dissolved into a pink blush as he realised the horror of what he'd done. Courfeyrac made a triumphant noise, admonishing himself for not having thought of this sooner. Enjolras, however, regarded Marius's attitudes with stern worry.  
  
  
"I had thought the better of you, no, the more sensibly. The Devil! It is a bottle for Grantaire, and for Marius, a woman. Very well! Let's see her. Show us your grisette, Marius, this dainty for which you'd abandon your principles. Prove to me that she is different from the mistresses of your fellows, and you'll have my blessing, by God."  
  
  
Marius immediately recoiled. The thought of sharing any moment of his time with Cosette with anyone, man or woman (and Enjolras, it occurred to him suddenly, was a remarkably good looking specimen of manhood), was absolute anathema. Let alone that Courfeyrac would want to come along... he fought for an excuse.  
  
  
"That would be impossible!" he ejaculated, "She... our courtship is clandestine. We can't just go to her house..."  
  
  
"You find a way." Enjolras countered.  
  
  
"Oh dear. She's not a patrician, is she, Marius?" Courfeyrac leaned forward. "An Heiress? A lady or a daughter of the restoration?"  
  
  
"No!" Marius sat all the way up. "At least, I don't think she is rich..." He didn't bother to elaborate how he knew that, not caring to go into descriptions of her attire to his friends. "...but I know she is no Bourbon. It occurs to me..." His heart stopped dead in his chest, but he forced the admission anyway, "You have seen her, Courfeyrac."  
  
  
"Have I? Surely not. The brightness of your vision would surely have blinded me, or dazzled me into incomprehension. Surely." He was still a little sore from Marius's condemnation a little before.  
  
  
"Some time ago, in the Luxembourg. She and her father, whom you called M. Leblanc..."  
  
  
"The devil! Mademoiselle-all-in-black! Leaping Christ!" And Courfeyrac fell off of the truck in roars of laughter enough to alarm Enjolras and send Marius into another fit of apoplexy. "Visions and stars! What a miraculous transformation? She must be something to speak to, Enjolras, for I tell you, the girl is frankly ugly."  
  
  
"Ingrate!" Marius leapt to his feet, but Enjolras was instantly between him and Courfeyrac.   
  
  
"Peace, friends. Save your ammunition." He aimed that as much at Courfeyrac as Marius, knowing his friend's somewhat barbed humor. Courfeyrac got to his feet, but Marius still crucified him with a glare. He sighed and extended his hand.  
  
  
"I meant no harm, Marius, but I fear your humor has turned to lead. At least you know you've nothing to fear from me, regarding your intended!" And he grinned so infectiously that Marius could not help but return his handclasp, with a murmured apology for getting so hot about it. He was not, however, terribly convinced about Courfeyrac's behavior.   
  
  
Also, to his dismay, Enjolras had not, it seemed, forgotten his purpose.  
  
  
"So, Marius, shall we meet your wife? Or are we not fit company for your house?"  
  
  
Marius could think of no retort stinging enough for the implied insult Enjolras had just given him, but he could tell the other man was still a bit hot of temper himself.  
  
  
"Fine, fine. I'll see her tonight, and you can come. But you must promise to be quiet."  
  
  
"You'll not introduce us?" Courfeyrac ventured, rakishly. Enjolras quelled him with a look, but Marius, defeated, already had begun.  
  
  
"I'll introduce you, but we mustn't wake her father." He also gave Courfeyrac a nasty glare, and he said nothing.   
  
  
"Of course, Marius." Enjolras nodded firmly. We will meet at the café at six, and you shall bring us to meet her."  
  
  
"Done!" cried Marius, and he stomped from the apartment, not waiting for Courfeyrac to catch up. In fact, if he never saw that smirking scoundrel ever again, it might be too soon for his temper. Never mind that he'd pledged to meet him-- and, confound it, Enjolras-- in four hours time. He cursed himself profoundly, his weakness and his confusion; the prospect of the impending evening bliss dashed by the enormity of the disaster.   
  
  
He felt-- though what little logic his mind could muster found it melodramatic of him-- that he would never be happy again.   
  
  
Logic, as is often the case where love is concerned, would soon prove completely dumbfounded. 


End file.
